IAPRS & SIS, Vol.34, Part 7, *Resource and Environmental Monitoring", Hyderabad, India,2002 
  
  
from the production of different crops takes into account all 
input costs such. as seeds, fingerlings, fertilizers, labor and 
water. The economic assessment model also takes into account 
input and output prices and costs and returns from intermediate 
products such as shrimp fry production. In the economic model 
the indicators are specified in Table 1. 
Social impact assessment model: The social indicators used in 
this study are specified in Table 1. The “relative importance" of 
different regimes corresponding to a particular indicator was 
determined by pair-wise comparison. The methodology used is 
the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), which is described as 
a “theory of measurement” developed around Saaty’s 
eigenvector method for determining priorities through pair-wise 
comparison. The corresponding computer package used was 
Expert Choice. The social indicators are calculated as the sum 
of depending variables multiplied by respective relative 
importance. Detailed calculations are shown in EGIS (2001a). 
Environmental impact assessment model: The environmental 
indicators are specified in Table 1. The relative importance of 
different regimes corresponding to a particular economic 
indicator was also determined by pair-wise comparison as 
described above. Detailed calculations are shown in EGIS 
(2001a). 
  
River / Beel 
Boro rice crop 
Mixed winter crop 
£2 Fallow bare land 
Fallow with stubble and grass 
Wetland grass 
Other 
Bagda shrimp farms 
Settlement/Homestead veg. 
Sundarbans Mangrove forest 
    
land use map 
  
BE Bagda shrimp farm 
BE River /Beel 
Aman rice crop 
35 Other Crops / Veg. 
Settlements 
Sundarbans Mangrove forest 
Golda shrimp farm 
  
  
Bagda / Aman 
Bagda / Bagda 
Aman rice 
Galda shrimn 
Boro rice 
Mixed Crop 
Other vegetation 
Settlement 
Mangrove 
River / Beel 
  
  
4 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 
The DSS presents the problems and landuse conflicts of the 
study area in a simple form for managers, planners and decision 
makers. The users can formulate their own objectives and select 
the criteria, which would help fulfill the objectives. They are 
provided with an interactive tool to select landuse strategies and 
scenarios to form cases for analysis and compare their 
environmental and the socio-economic impacts without being 
stalled by their complex interrelationships. The DSS brings 
together information from a large number of different sources. 
Remote sensing data has been instrumental as there is no other 
source that gives spatial distribution of landuse. The 
development of direct and indirect linkages between 
information and decision support gives a more scientific basis 
to an otherwise economically and socio-politically driven 
decision-making process. 
Within the computational framework, land suitability model for 
different landuse types may be integrated so that landuse 
allocations are more realistic. Addition of a multi criteria 
evaluation tool would greatly enhance the decision support 
capability of the DSS as currently it presents a score-card for 
comparison and evaluation of strategies. 
5 REFERENCES 
CPD, 1999, Environmental Consequences of Structural 
Adjustment: Towards Sustainable Shrimp Culture in 
Bangladesh, Paper 2., Center for Policy Dialogue, Dhaka, 
Bangladesh. 
EGIS, 2001a. Integrated Environmental Management: A case 
study on landuse strategies in the southwest of Bangladesh, 
(Technical Note-19), Environment and GIS Support Project for 
Water Sector Planning, Dhaka, Bangladesh. 
EGIS, 2001b. Development of Decision Support Systems, 
(Technical Note-20), Environment and GIS Support Project for 
Water Sector Planning, Dhaka, Bangladesh. 
EGIS & SPARRSO, 2001. Applications of ERS-2 images in 
monitoring water and landuses, Environment and GIS Support 
Project for Water Sector Planning (EGIS) and Space Research 
and Remote Sensing Organization (SPARRSO) joint report, 
Dhaka, Bangladesh. 
FFYP, 1997, The Fifth Five Year Plan 1997-2002, Planning 
Commission, Government of Bangladesh. 
Rijsberman, F.R and Koudstaal, R. 1989. Development and 
application of a framework for analysis for integrated coastal 
resources management in an international context. In. Magoon 
OT (ed), Coastal Zone 1989. ASCE, New York. 
6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 
The DSS was prepared by EGIS in collaboration with Resource 
Analysis (RA) of the Netherlands. It is a part of EGIS endeavor 
in capacity development for Integrated Environmental 
Management. 
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